LAUC-B 2013 Spring Assembly

The LAUC Statewide Assembly will be held on May 20, 2013, in Los Angeles.

The LAUC-B Affiliated Libraries Spring Assembly will be held on Tuesday, April 2, 2013, 8:30-10:00 am, at the UC Berkeley School of Law, Warren Room (Room 295). Professor Marti Hearst of the UC Berkeley School of Information is the featured speaker and will give a presentation on interface design and accessibility for novice and expert users.

LAUC-B Committee reports were distributed by email to lauc@lists.berkeley.edu on Tuesday, March 19, 2013.

A call was made for nominations from the floor for the LAUC-B Executive Committee 2013-2014 candidate slate by Waverly Lowell, LAUC-B Nominations and Elections Committee Co-Chair. No further nominations were received from the floor.

IV. Welcome by University Librarian Tom Leonard

Tom Leonard warmly welcomed LAUC-B to the Spring Assembly and thanked for the opportunity to address members.

CoUL is interested in comments from the LAUC membership on the vision and priorities articulated.

Tom shared his observations and thoughts on the Systemwide Plan and Priorities:

While the term digital does not appear in the vision or mission statements, its implicit in what we do. Our future is digital as Item 2 expresses: Capitalize on technological opportunities to accelerate the transition to a primarily digital environment.

High-quality spaces is prominently noted in the mission statement. All of us in touch with undergraduate library users cant say too much about the need for these collaboration and learning spaces even in the digital age.

Patient care appears prominently in the mission statement. Outside of the Optometry and Health Sciences Library and the Public Health Library, we dont think frequently enough about patient care at the UC Berkeley Library. Its quite stimulating to be with University Librarians whose libraries have a responsibility for dealing with clinical research questions that have a direct impact on peoples health.

Outside of the formal meetings of the ten UC library systems, we often find ourselves involved in global initiatives. UC Berkeley is a member of the International Alliance of Research Universities (IARU) with Yale as the only other North American institution in that group. Its interesting to sit down with someone from Singapore, the UK, Japan, and Denmark, where you can complete each others sentences. We are in the same business, deal with the same library vendors, and have common features that allow collaboration and cooperation.

Organizational infrastructure and collaboration for digital and special collections are important.

Recently, UCLA, UCSD, and Berkeley have been working together in the archive space to develop software that handle our archival materials. Collaborations like this happen because the UC campuses meet together as often as we do.

However, its important not to exclude outside universities. Our peers arent necessarily the other nine UC campuses; sometimes our true partners lie outside the system. And this true of our work with Stanford University. Its important to find similar synergies and partnerships both within the ten campus UC system and with outside organizations.

The Plan and Priorities also makes reference to online education. Librarians have been providing constructive criticism on UCOE (UC Online Education) and that is to the good.

Towards the end of the document, there is a call for systemwide policy support for issues like fair use and so forth.

You probably have all seen the good news of the recent Supreme Court decision on the first-sale doctrine, which impacts our fundamental service of loaning library resources.

This case demonstrates the effective advocacy of the UCs to lobby and advocate for the laws that are made.

But advocacy is likely to be more effective under a consortium of national library organizations with good access to lobbyists and legal groups. The Supreme Court decision on the first-sale doctrine paid general attention to those briefs prepared by library associations. This is why spend about $26k a year to be a member of ARL, and organizations like ALA too, because they really have the bench strength to argue for things that are really important to libraries.

Unfortunately, not all library organizations stand up to meet these responsibilities.

Tom concluded with his interest in learning from LAUC members their thoughts and ideas on the University of California Libraries, Systemwide Plan and Priorities, FY 2013-2016.

V. The next part of the meeting, in preparation for the LAUC Statewide Assembly on this topics, was a discussion of LAUC-Bs Response to the Systemwide Plan and Priorities, FY 2-13-16.

The 35 attendees were randomly assigned to four groups.

Each of the groups discussed one of the following four points:

Whats missing from the document that LAUC feels is important to address/include?

Which of the priorities listed in the document are feasible/practical with UCs existing resources/staffing/expertise?

Which activities should the UC library stop performing in order to accommodate or achieve the stated priorities?

What concrete next steps or action items related to the document and its contents should LAUC undertake following the Assembly or should LAUC recommend to CoUL?

The group as a whole voted on What LAUC feels are the highest priorities among those outlined in the document. Enrich the Systemwide Collections by preserving (and providing access to, including digitizing) heritage materials got by far the most votes 49, compared to the next highest of 29. The other most voted items included:

Evolving library workforce (Build and Leverage Expertise) librarians will need more training as new responsibilities emerge.